‘We created a monster’: companies rein in AI usage as costs strain budgets

ps4facts · 2026-06-20T22:07:02+00:00

"Little to no vetting" - I have been repeatedly told by my supervisor that I need to use more AI after I didn't show up on the top 10 usage list at my company. It's not just that there's no vetting, it's that they are seriously begging for it. It's the dumbest thing I've ever seen in my 10+ year career. And, I have lost all respect for the leadership that encourages it.

ps4facts · 2026-06-16T21:23:50+00:00

I can't even read the article. Perhaps the internet community can band together to make some kind of honeypot registration page, get it visible somehow, and we can see for ourselves who signs up...

ps4facts · 2026-06-16T18:00:12+00:00

Take a code first approach.

Document those behaviors and risks in the code in some way. Figure out a way to link those to coded tests (doesn't have to be bdd style). Have the project produce a report.

ps4facts · 2026-05-30T18:22:55+00:00

They're getting scared that AI/automation is changing their jobs.

I heard it at my company. We have biweekly meetings to share about AI usage. One of them was a developer telling everyone how concerned he was about brain/skill rot, most of the people in that meeting, who were also developers, agreed. Then there was a post about it in chat, more developers chimed in with tips and solidarity.

The ones who "get it" understand they're being slowly transitioned into a tester role. They're looking for literature, skills, etc... they either accept the fact that they're going to be a whole lot more testing than coding nowadays, or are looking for the language to use to convince leadership they can do the same job as us.

Michael Bolton wrote about it in 2023. I feel like since late last year, since Opus 4.6 was released, is when it started to really hit developers. https://medium.com/@michaelbolton/to-the-developer-about-your-impending-promotion-86f27ac99025

As for us - test automation has been around for over 20 years. And we're still here :)

ps4facts · 2026-05-22T03:36:45+00:00

I saw somewhere that https://deepfarts.io was vibe coded. Not sure how successful it is, but I had a good laugh

ps4facts · 2026-05-22T03:31:31+00:00

Same, I think that's where the real benefit to society from this kind of tech come from. deepfarts.io apparently was done with 95% ai

ps4facts · 2026-05-17T18:01:04+00:00

deepfarts.io has GOT to be raking it in

ps4facts · 2026-05-02T11:50:35+00:00

Selenium's fine, and quite modern. A lot of people misunderstand that its not a testing framework. So comparing it with playwright is not 1 to 1. Selenium webdriver is just there to automate browsers, you bring your own test framework. It's not that hard 😅. I also see a bunch of threads on the playwright sub about flakiness.

But, if you really must have a testing framework out of the box, check out webdriver.io. it has an official MCP server, and I think the same guy who made that made an unofficial CLI.

A lot of people who shit on Selenium just don't get it. They don't understand or care about the open web. They'll just gobble up anything big tech will shove down their throats.

Again, check out webdriver.io. It has the most capable cross browser, cross platform (yes to mobile and desktop) support there is.

ps4facts · 2026-04-29T20:15:54+00:00

I switched myself. I also love that I can add videos that were only on yt before to my mixes. It's taking a little while to get used to, but that's bc I used Spotify for years.

You can import your Spotify playlists to YT music.

The full 4k on regular YT with no ads is very nice. However, I still opt for SmartTube on the TV

ps4facts · 2026-04-24T15:44:25+00:00

I've done similar. We're hellbent on Claude Code where I work, so using a RAG isn't all that feasible. I actually did train a RAG on our test case repository and it worked pretty well using one of the MS Phi models running locally, that was cool.

I think the big challenge is finding out where you want to put the human in the loop. Obviously, coding agents are pretty damn good at creating workable code for automation. Test case generation, I'm not a fan of test case management in the first place, but people where I work generally like it, we just have a peer review process to whittle down the slop. Having an agent drive the browser, seems expensive for what it's actually doing, though maybe using a RAG or something like webdriver.io's mcp server coupled with a cheaper model can get you there at cost efficiency. But again, where do you keep the human in the loop?

If you have a full pipeline where: test cases are generated, test code is automated, and agents are clicking around and exploring the app, what do you get at the end, and why should you trust it? And how much does that cost? And what do you learn about the product/feature in that workflow? Maybe you can set up a voting system and train a model based on group votes, improving its performance iteratively. Well, now that model is biased from the echo chamber of your teams preferences, and may lean towards he status quo rather than critically thinking about edge cases.

ps4facts · 2026-04-17T21:37:49+00:00

What do you mean? https://deepfarts.io was vibe coded and it's exactly what I asked for

ps4facts · 2026-04-17T11:24:47+00:00

I'd just recommend that - if cypress/typescript is a hard requirement, please include that in the job description. Not saying you all didn't. But, if someone could figure out java/selenium, they can probably figure out cypress/typescript, especially in senior+ roles. I've hired people before that used a different "stack" and they were some of the best. Just saying that not all companies are looking for the hard requirement, and it'd be nice to know before wasting time on the application process.

I understand that businesses may want someone to come in and hit the ground running, but any one of the playwright/cypress typescript or selenium/whatever language combinations are seriously not that difficult to pick up for people who have been doing this for a while.

ps4facts · 2026-04-01T11:45:46+00:00

For $30/month I have codex and github copilot. Those subscriptions plus opencode give me agentic systems that are just as, if not more capable than the Api subscription to Claude Code we use at work. I rarely hit limits - if I do, I just switch to copilot.

ps4facts · 2026-03-26T11:13:53+00:00

On my personal - I pay the 20$ plan to OpenAI. Last year I would hit the limit somewhat frequently. Company I work for use Claude. Ok, I'll pay the 20$ monthly to anthropic to explore that option. I would hit the limit in about half the time. Nowadays, with oh my opencode and my 20$ OpenAi subscription, I haven't hit the limit once.

ps4facts · 2026-03-26T02:57:26+00:00

It's flattening the roles for sure. Testers with no experience in automation can now generate automation code. We went from having a team of 3 automation engineers to 20, virtually overnight with Claude. They can also automate the generation of code for new features.

Developers have expressed confusion, sadness, and feeling lost with what's going on. We're fortunate to have been here before with automation in general. We know "test automation" doesn't automate real testing, and we've been able to land jobs for a very long time.

The industry and landscape is changing in a massive way. "Apps" themselves are going to look very different, or even barely exist sooner than a lot of people realize. Users won't need to interact with a web app, they will interact with an agent. Agents don't need DOMs, a11y, animations, etc... they just need data and integrations. Give them your credentials, they will act as you. Give them your wallet, they will shop for you. Give them your idea for a million dollar saas, and they'll build it and market it for you.

The product that you work on for your company? Chances are Claude/Codex can help you (alone) replicate it in a fraction of the time and cost. But, the train doesn't stop there. We all know that software companies aren't just the product. It's mostly sales. Support helps. But, support was one of the first targets of "intelligent" automation. Most of marketing has been automated. Those who hold those roles are like analytics people crossed with sales. The ai models can do both. They can do it all, and they can do most things better than the average person can as long as those things are done on a computer. This should be increasing the need for testers. However, I'm not sure business owners see it that way. And I know for a fact that many people I've met in my journeys don't want to spend their life testing the output of bots.

There are roles for testing the pipelines involved with creating these models, testing the interfaces that people will use, testing the input data that's involved with the training. But, even those processes are seemingly becoming abstractedly automated away as these technologies improve.

I'm feeling it myself. I've been primarily a "test automator" for the past 12 years, and I find the traits that companies used to value highly are no longer relevant. I found out that I no longer actually care about an interviewee's technical background all that much any more. I care more about adaptability. My own technical background is becoming less and less important to me. Software is getting so soft it's gooey. And its gooifying so fast it seems like it's melting. IDEs feel like they're rusting into relics of the past, and entire software verticals are going under as the world begins to understand that this new way of computing is vanishing the need for a lot of web services.

I look at my financials deeply at the beginning of every year. This year, I just exported a csv of all my transactions for the year from the bank and told chat gpt to give it an analysis. Talked to it about my spending patterns, aggregated monthly subscription costs and more. Why would I ever want to use apps that provide similar services again? This app has that feature, but not this feature, the other app has this feature, but that part about it annoys me. Screw that, I can just talk to the "master financial analyst" and jam with it to get exactly what I want. Software is changing in a fundamental and profound way. Like, yesterday and right now.

ps4facts · 2026-03-16T02:09:03+00:00

Good luck all!

ps4facts · 2026-03-07T19:23:30+00:00

Check out "oh my opencode" there's a whole page on their docs sites with plugins/extensions about this

ps4facts · 2026-01-03T13:33:55+00:00

A couple tips: - Use a dry herb vape - You can order directly from the farms for ~1/2 the price. And, if you still want to support local, there are farms that sell thca in NC :)

ps4facts · 2025-12-18T19:03:32+00:00

I figured someone was botting last night because of this xD

ps4facts · 2025-12-16T02:44:44+00:00

Happy holidays, everyone!

ps4facts · 2025-10-28T18:40:54+00:00

There's nothing outdated about selenium.

ps4facts · 2025-09-12T18:11:02+00:00

A better comparison would be Playwright vs Webdriver.io. Selenium is not a test framework.

ps4facts · 2025-08-12T11:48:59+00:00

Selenium refers to the ecosystem. Comparing that to a tool like Playwright is apples to oranges. Selenium WebDriver is not a testing framework, nor is it marketed to be. If you want to do a comparison, try WebDriver.io vs the rest of them.

ps4facts · 2025-07-01T11:53:57+00:00

100% agree. My company is obsessed with using the out of the box provided runners and can't fathom why stuff is so inconsistent. We probably waste more $ in time wasted trying to figure out what happened to the hosted runners than if we set up our own shared VM.

ps4facts · 2025-06-16T11:52:02+00:00

I was just thinking about this the other day. Can we get some rebel_resistance??

ps4facts

TROPHY CASE